Animal Crossing-Nintendo’s Life Simulation

Animal Crossing isn’t a game I remember too well back when it was first released. I haven’t played it in seventeen years, and coming back to this game doesn’t give me the same sense of nostalgia I normally get from games like Luigi’s Mansion and most other things I find to be entertaining.

Animal Crossing is more than just a life simulator. While it was an enjoyable game for kids like me back in 2001 who were experiencing their first big console games, Animal Crossing hides an array of meaningful lessons I didn’t fully comprehend until years later.

The game is actually mindblowing in its portrayal of the transition into adulthood. It’s particularily immersive because it’s like MY generation is being represented here.

For those of us who grew up in the 90’s, we’re always told by our parents and their parents how we don’t work hard enough to have the kind of lives they do. They talk about how they worked to get to where they are now, but don’t recognize that it was a different time back then, and now things are much more expensive than they used to be despite our generation earning about as much as generations that came before us.

This is demonstrated upon first entering your town in the game. You are met by a Raccoon named Tom Nook, who strikes me as a failure of a businessman given the phone call that takes place during the intro sequence and how he interacts with you. He sees you as his next big break, and he’s super greedy, offering to sell you one of four house options that are bare and lifeless but very expensive.

Upon being given the option of buying a house from the bare and lifeless selection I mentioned, we learn that we only have 1,000 Bells in pocket change and are otherwise broke.

In this game, you need 17,800 Bells to actually be able to buy a house. Now, wherever you happen to be from and/or are currently living, think about what an apartment may cost in your area. It’s a lot for just one person to be able to afford, right?

As there is no option to rent a place with others in the game, we as the player are on our own and must pay off the mortgage we owe. So, the game basically teaches you about the concept of work by having you work for Tom Nook to make some money before going off to do that on your own.

Obviously money doesn’t grow on trees, but in this game it does. It’s one of the only ways you can make money besides selling stuff you don’t need to Tom Nook, or selling a valuable artifact to the museum. But it’s not that easy to make money, except if you have the Game Boy connection to be able to go on Kapp’n’s island from the Dock. If you do, you can easily make up to $3,000 Bells, which in my opinion is a serious misstep in this game.

It’s one of the only bad things about it for me personally. Why introduce the concept of work in this game if you’re going to give players a shortcut. Whether young or old, how to work is a crucial lesson everyone should learn at some point in their lives.

In your town, the game will make you work for your money, not just through actual work, but by forcing you to do things in trial and error fashion. That is how you make it through life, both in this game and out in the real world.

Tree shaking comes at a risk, as shaking the wrong tree can knock down a bee hive and send the swarm after you. Some trees will have fruits you can sell, bugs you can catch as long as you have a net, or nothing at all. You won’t always find bags of money, and you won’t have all the tools you’ll need at the start of the game.

You need a net to catch bugs for favors from others in town, or they’ll ask you to catch a fish but you’ll need a fishing pole. Depending on the time of day you’re playing the game and how busy your life is, you can’t access Tom Nook’s shop to buy what you need until the next day in real life. He’s only open from 9:00 AM to 10 PM.

I consider this other drawback in the game to be a personal nitpick. Basically, you see nothing different in your town’s appearance or in who lives there except for a few new villagers if your town reaches the max capacity of 15 inhabitants. In order to get some variety, you need to start the game over.

Why I don’t consider this a huge issue is because it adds replayability value to a game that can easily get boring and repetitive.

Animal Crossing is the only game I’ve ever played that runs on real time. But unlike life, it never ends even as you’re navigating through the life of your virtual male or female character. Also, unlike life, your character has a lot more freedom to just enjoy everything.

Without a long lasting job of some kind, you can help your neighbors all the time and experience little risk in simply living. There is no violence in this game other than Bee attacks and the worst thing that could happen to you is your eye swelling up as a result of an attack. It’s honestly creepy, feeling like one of your virtual avatar’s eyes has been destroyed and one side of their face has been forever scarred.

Community is what this game is all about, and it helps your town actually function well. Striving for a better community undoubtedly improves the world around you, but refusing to help those in need and to help the environment doesn’t make for a great place to live.

The worst things you could ever do in this game that aren’t physically harmful, but are harmful to your performance in game, would be to anger your neighbors in some way. So be kind and helpful to others, in Animal Crossing and in the real world. Help to improve the lives of others and they’ll do the same for you.

Thanks for reading. Next time, I’ll be looking back to 2003 with the video game adaptation of The Hobbit on the Gamecube.

See you all in the next chapter!